


Temperance

by Cluegirl



Category: The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Gen, Some Fairy Godmothers are harsher than others, Steve may be Protestant, coming of age story, gratuitous abuse of Irish mythology
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2015-08-04
Packaged: 2018-01-19 18:26:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1479601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cluegirl/pseuds/Cluegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a recurring dream Steve only has when he almost dies.  Only it's different every time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit of self-indulgence on my part. It's going to be slow in coming, but as you know if you've followed me for any time at all, I don't abandon stories once they're in the wind. Pinky swear!

Sarah Rogers's first baby comes into the world in the early hours of July Fourth, 1918, under the competent guidance of Nan Bridey and her daughter and granddaughter. Sarah labors quite a long time, and the infant needs to be righted inside her twice before he can find the air, but the midwives of Vinegar Hill have delivered more babes between them than have come through the hospital where Sarah works, and this birth is nothing close to the worst of them. They tell her to push, and to breathe, and to be brave, and gamely, for nearly twelve hours, she does.

It is only once they've taken him away to clean up the blood, that Sarah gets her first sight of the baby she's cradled beneath her heart all these months, the bare handful of a boy -- the son that Joseph had so wished for, but now might never see. Only then does her courage begin to fail her. 

"He..." the sound that leaks out from behind her knuckles is raw and sharp. "He's so... It's too early. I knew it was too early." She squeezes her eyes shut tight, trying already to forget how blue his tiny, fragile fingertip seem, how weakly he seems to flail and gasp under the assault of their damp flannels and soap. "Oh, mercy, he'll surely not live the-"

"Ah now, none of that, Mother Rogers." Nan cuts off her fears as readily now as she did hours before, when it seemed the birth would tear her apart from within. "It's true he's come early," she chuckles, "and sure he's but a little thing, but just hear that lusty cry?" 

She doesn't. He's barely grizzling now, each noise he makes is thready and pale in the thick air of the top floor apartment, still baked breathless from the day's relentless sun. He might as well be blue with cold and a winter away.

But before she says so, Brid's wide, motherly hands flip him face down to bathe his back with neither pomp nor ceremony, and his protest at the indignity is instant, and emphatic. Sarah gasps, wincing at the loud cry, but Nan only grins, wide and proud. "He's got a singer's shout, that one. And just look how he's gripping tight now," she says, taking the baby from her daughter to lay him, loosely swaddled and red-faced, against Sarah's breast. Sure enough, he's got a twist of the green wool clenched in a tiny murder-grip, which only eases once he's turned cheek-down to Sarah's skin, and his crying fades into snuffling. "Oh yes, he's stronger than you know, dearie," the old woman chuckles as she moves away, "just like his ma." 

Sarah is reeling from the sudden relief of pain and strain and terror, awed and amazed and appalled her son could have _hurt_ so much coming out of her, and still be so very, very small. "Can," she gulps, dry-tongued and still feeling weepy, even with the weight of nine precious months squirming out of his blankets against her chest. "Can you take him to the church right away?" she begs them, catching at Brigit's arm as she leans near to slip a tiny sliver of afterbirth between the baby's lips -- too small to choke on, but just enough for his luck to grow. 

The girl makes a merry face at her, as if she'd made a joke. "It's gone well past three in the morning, Missus," she answers as her mother passes over a wet cloth to clean a bit more the blood from the baby now he's settling. Steven. Joseph had wanted him named for his grandfather, hadn't he? Yes. Steven, who squirms in Sarah's arms, fussing over his second bath. But young Brigit gives no quarter, to infant's ire, or mother's fears. "Father Patrick will be long abed by now. He'll not get up at this hour, unless the chapel takes fire again."

"But he must be saved," Sarah insists, trying to school the weary tears from her voice. "In case he should... should slip away before..."

"Och, my dearie you've nothing to fear for this one," old Nan chuckles as she and her daughter deftly maneuver the bloodied linens out from under Sarah without disturbing Steve, who's finally given over his protests in favor of suckling. "He'll hold his own the night and longer, unless I miss my tell of it." She lifts Sarah's limp, trembling arm, steers one finger into the flex-and-grab of Steven's tiny hand against her breast, and yes, his grip is stronger than she'd thought it could be. A final tension bleeds away from his tiny body as he holds fast to her, lips and fingers, and wee, iron will that won't be budged without a fight, despite the sweltering heat of July in Brooklyn.

Nan's daughter runs a comb quickly through Sarah's hair, braids it loosely out of the way, and helps her to settle down properly into the bed while the other two bustle about the room, taking away the wash pots, the linens, and the afterbirth, which no doubt they'll burn or bury somewhere in the tenement's scrap of dirt yard. She doesn't much hold with their Popish, pagan ways, being Protestant born and bred, but Sarah is too grateful for their comfort and company to speak a word to the matter. They might as well set out milk for the faeries, and draw on the floor with chalks, and she'd still just hold her peace and her son and let them get about it. 

"You sleep now, Mother Rogers," she says, dropping a motherly kiss on Sarah's still-sweaty brow, then another on Steven's . "We'll look after your little man and you as well tonight, and see about the priest tomorrow."

She nods, slipping low into the wadded bedding, Steven still so firmly attached that the shift doesn't trouble his meal even a little. The Bridey women begin to sing then, low and comfortable in the gloom -- one of the Old Songs, soft and worn about the edges, as far from the clipped, tight English words as Sarah's starched flannel uniform was from her worn flannel nightdress. The last thing Sarah Rogers notices before her eyes drift closed is that someone's tied a scrap of scarlet yarn to the nail that juts out of the plaster over her bed, where Joseph's photo had hung before Sarah'd had to pawn the frame. 

It's odd, but not alarming, and the women's low, familiar singing ease her into sleep before she can say a word about it. It will be the first deep, untroubled sleep Sarah's had since the day her husband shipped out to France, the some deep part of her soul understands that it will be the last for a long time as well. 

She will not so much as stir when her midwives finish their puttering and draw close, will not twitch as first the girl, then her mother, and then the elder dame leans low over the infant at her breast. Brigit sweeps a finger across his round, ruddy cheek, Brid kisses the tuft of gold drying atop his tiny head, then Nan rests a gnarled fingertip on his breastbone for a long, warning moment. He stares gravely back at each one, his eyes wide and blue and unafraid in the face of their unvoiced promises. Steven Grant Rogers, fresh-smelted and damp from the crucible, is innocent, sweet, and brutal; just a hint of steel in the way he refuses to fear the large, bright world into which he's been thrust, a stubborn, precious gleam in the determined fingers that tight to his Dam, as though to somehow protect what's precious to him from all comers.

The three smile back: delightedly, proudly, sadly. This one will be a star, and he will shine like few others in the world. But all things that shine must first burn -- and while the Fire may not be cruel by nature, neither is She particularly merciful.


	2. The First Time

He's bright for a boy so young, everyone says so; sweet and obedient (or good at seeming so when under adult eyes) clever with things that open, like latches, catches, bags, and crates, and inquisitive -- perhaps a bit too much so -- with new things, people, and words. He's picked up snatches of Italian, Russian, Gaelic, Yiddish and Polish from the neighbors even as his Ma, bless her patient soul, was getting him his proper English. And if the words he learnt aren't the best ones for a child of just three to know, well at least they're good for a laugh when they come tumbling from such a cherubic face as his.

Steve likes it when people laugh -- the good kind of laugh, the one that means they're happy, not the sour, hard, mean kind -- and he likes it even more when he can make that laughing happen. So he keeps up with the words his neighbors teach him in their own various languages, even the complicated ones with many parts and strange sounds in, and he listens hard for more words to add to his collection whenever he gets the chance.

None of the words he knows, though, help Steve make any sense out of "Rheumatic Fever" when he comes across it -- or rather, when _it_ comes across _him._

Adults still talked about something called Flu in hushed, horrified voices, and he'd heard that word a lot when he first fell sick, but Ma shuts the lot down. It is _not_ the Spanish Flu, she tells them all, and since she'd nursed the sick through those years, who better than she should know the signs? This is different altogether. At first, she calls it "Scarlet" -- a word Steve already dislikes for the angry way his Irish neighbors say it. But then, when Steve sweats and pants and cries his way through one miserable week and looks fair to keep on for a second, a doctor comes with cold hands and distant eyes, and gives them both the new word.

It's a hard word, a sour one, and it coils around Steve's fevered brain like a snake, like a river fog, like a plume of scratching dust that sticks in his throat no matter how he coughs. He can't quite get hold of it, that funny, soft hiss that almost wasn't there between the rue and the matic, the whining ewwww, like a mosquito in the ear, that doesn't seem to fit through the rhythm his heart kept hammering out against his ribs.

It's an ugly word, and he dislikes it the instant he hears it, and more every time it's repeated, in tones aghast, appalled, and intrigued at the edge of his hearing. But ugly or not, it still fills up his head like the heat and pain and shivers all under his skin, and makes it far too hard to lie still in Ma's lap and be good, be quiet while she sings to him through her tears, the tune soft and thick and sad in her throat.

Steve doesn't like the word at all -- not if it makes Ma weep like that, he doesn't like it one little bit. "Don't cry, Ma," he tries to tell her, but his mouth feels too soft, his tongue too weak, his teeth like big stones in his jaw, too heavy for him to move. The mumble he makes is barely a hum underneath the wheezing of his breath, and it doesn't seem like she hears it anyway. The air is swimming with fog and shadows and flickers of light that dart like fairies around Ma's head. Steve stares at the flickers of light, flocking brighter and thicker around them, almost hearing whispers behind the rattling of his breath, and the lilting croon of Ma's singing. But then his eyelids are sliding closed, and not all the stubbornness in the world can help him keep them open to see what it is the flickering lights will do next.

But the singing carries on though, steady and calming as the darkness behind his eyes deepens and goes silky, as the weight on his chest makes his arms and legs go limp and heavy. The song is sweet around him, like the arms that keep rocking him back and forth, back and forth against clean, soft fabric that rustles like the river when the tide comes in and scours all the city trash away. A strong, cool hand smooths the sweaty hair away from his face, smelling like cinders and hot metal as it gentles the pain of his fever under a sure, callused touch.

"Ma?" The word, nearly colorless, sneaks out past lips sore and cracked from panting, but he knows she's heard it, because the body he's cradled to huffs just a tiny bit, making the tune curl around the unexpected laugh.

"T'isn't," a half-familiar voice answers him, and though it's low, close and gentle, there's something huge, and a little bit scary inside it. It isn't his Ma that's holding him at all. But he's so very tired still, that he can't find it in him to actually fear that voice, not even when the arms -- which he can feel now, are stronger, burlier than his Ma's, -- shift him up higher against a breast that's fuller, softer, and yet somehow solid as stone. "Here then," the woman says, and Steve feels a cup press against his lips, "Drink a bit."

He expects the tinny, icy water that flows out of the kitchen tap -- that, or the bitter tea that Mrs. Chatinski brought up when he first got sick, insisting it would make him well overnight. (It had only made him sleepy.) He's so surprised when the drink that flows from the cup is milk, that he almost chokes on it. But it's warm, and it's thick with cream, and he can't think when he last got milk so very good. It's so delicious, and he's so suddenly hungry that Steve struggles his own weak hands up to clutch at the cup, gulping so quickly that a dribble of milk spills over his cheek to gather on the point of his working chin.

The strong lady laughs again, a low, rumbling laugh, and catches the drip on her finger as Steve tips the cup and his chin up high to get the last drops out. "There now," she says, taking the pottery cup back again once Steve finally gives up the chase, "that's better, isn't it?"

Steve nods, knowing he should be polite, especially to strangers -- and craning around to peer at her, he knows he's never seen this woman before. He'd have remembered such fiery hair, and such green eyes if he'd ever seen her before. "Thank you ma'am," he ventures, and her smile tucks up just a little more on one side before she nods back, gracious as a queen, and turns to set the cup aside. Steve takes the moment to look around the low, dark room, his gaze skipping over half-familiar tools that line the walls and hang from the low rafters, the wide, squat chimney that fills up all of one wall, and the vast bed of coals that glows sleepily, basking-hot underneath it.

The whole room smells of metal and coal smoke, and strangely, also of warm milk and green, growing things, like the thick, soft moss that liked the stones beside the river. Steve has never been here, never seen such a place as this, and he can't help wondering if, now that the lady has given him his drink, she will set him down someplace, tell him to be good and keep out of trouble and out from underfoot. Ladies always have work to do, and he's too big and restless for them to work around him in their laps -- he doesn't like that much, but enough of them have told him so that Steve's resigned himself to it as a truth of his life.

But this lady makes no move to shift Steve at all, just tucks him up against her in one long arm, so that his cheek can't help but fall to her broad collarbone, and his hand comes up almost by itself to tuck a thumb between his lips. 

"Goyna Mphurk?" he mumbles around it, too weary, too comfortable, too full of sweet milk and shivering relief from the ache that's haunted him for weeks now to find his words and put them rightly together. Still, she chuckles at him, smooths his hair over his brow again, and gives her head a gentle shake.

"Not for now, we won't, _a cuisle_ ," she says, and a single curl drips down like a bright cinder over her smiling cheek to tickle Steve's. "We'll have work enough to do later, you and I."

Steve makes a curious noise, shifts just enough to cut a concerned glance up at her, but she tucks his chin down again with a kiss to his brow, and brushes his eyes closed under long, gentle fingers. "Later, child, later," she tells him, and begins to sway them gently side to side. "For now, you must rest and listen; I've a story to tell you about two very bold heroes, great chieftans and leaders of men, the pair of them, and the very bitterest of rivals they were, except for when they were the best of friends..."

***

Come morning, Steve's fever has broken. He sleeps nearly through the next two days, and when he finally wakes properly, he doesn't remember the low room, or the red haired lady at all. But he does remember a story about two men, and a cave full of monsters, and when he tries to tell it to his Ma, Steve learns a new word to add to his collection -- delerium.

By the doctor's stern orders, he's not allowed to get up from his bed for a fortnight, and it's another month before Steve can sneak out to the street without someone collaring him right back upstairs again to sit quiet and not strain himself. And it's another two years before he meets another boy who's heard the names of Fionn Mac Uail and Coll Mac Morna, and can tell him more about them than just the hazy tale of dogs and hags and swordfights in a cave that Steve can recall. 

The boy's got a book, or rather, his Da's got one, that has more stories in, and printed pictures as well, and when they're caught trying to sneak it out of the apartment, the boy's Ma sits them both down on quick-swatted bums, and makes them shell garden peas while she reads it out to them.

It isn't much of a punishment, as punishments go. They're ripping tales, very pagan and not at all the kind of thing Ma would approve of. Steve decides after the second story -- the one with the venomous sheep -- that he's going to be best friends with this boy, this Bucky, forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who are curious, the story the Lady tells Steve in this section is _The Enchanted Cave of Cesh Corran_ , as written by James Stephens, in which Fionn Mac Uaill and his hot mortal frienemy, Goll Mac Morna are totally rocking teh hatesex, leik whoa.
> 
> Go read it yourself, if you don't believe me!


	3. The Second Time

Steve has a split lip, a black eye, three half-drowned kittens in his shirt, and he's running flat out for the possible safety of Mr. Eider's flower shop when it happens. 

The rank, dogsbreath wind of late summer garbage turns thin and harsh and loud in his chest, whistling in his ears, drowning out the pounding feet and bellowed threats and barking dog behind him. Steve feels a thud against his shoulder, sharp and staggering, knocking what little breath he has loose, but it's only a brick -- he hears it clatter off the alley wall as he forces himself to keep running. Steve _tried_ fighting them before, but while he was kicking and biting and giving what hell he could manage, Harry Drennan's damn dog tore up the mama cat, and got halfway through the rest of her litter.

Steve didn't much like kicking the dog, and he doesn't at all like having to run for it while Harry and his friends pick themselves up and give chase, but if these three tiny, helpless lives are all Steve can save, then by God, he was gonna save them!

More trash flies, bricks and rocks and nastier stuff too. Something clips Steve along one ear, and leaves it throbbing, damp and awful, and he's almost glad the air just won't come because at least he can't smell it as his knees give out and the greasy pavement lurches up under his hands. One of the kittens squirms just wrong and falls free of Steve's shirt with a tiny ginger thud and a squeak of alarm, and even though he can hear the shouts nearly on him, can feel the rocks thudding through the sparkling, grey, too-thick air, Steve huddles down over the tiny creature, tucks his head under his hands and waits -- fists, feet, spittle or tearing teeth, he can take it. 

He can take it, if only he can get his breath back before it gets knocked out of him for good...

But then the running feet are coming from the other direction, sharp Sunday shoes clattering along the pavement, and higher, lilting voices bellowing a war cry Steve would know in his sleep. Bucky's come, his good school clothes plucked loose, and tie flying as he runs with Hamish, Isaac, Molly and Jo all charging along after him, hell in their eyes and sticks in their hands like bold Finian heroes of old. He squints a smile as they thunder past him, and puts his will to the problem of getting back to his feet.

The black kitten's claws are sharper than needles against Steve's belly, the ginger one bumbling and squeaking against his folded arm, but the pale grey one beside his heart is disturbingly still, and Steve can't tell anymore whether it's even shivering. He's shivering though. He's heaving with all his strength, struggling against air that's turned into a wall against him, and he's getting nowhere, and the blood is roaring in his ears and he's scared. He's _scared_!

Bucky's shoe appears beneath his fading eyes as hands grip at his shirt and haul him off the pavement. There's a scuff of sticky mud down one side of the shiny leather, and a splash of bright red across the toe where the fancy stitching goes, and Steve thinks, as the thrush and pound of blood in his ears grinds the world away into flickering darkness, that it'll be tough to shine them up enough to make Buck's ma happy before next Sunday. 

The rushing sound is all that remains. The rushing sound and, strangely, the still, chilly weight of the kitten inside his shirt. His heart is just beginning to sink into disappointment when to Steve's surprise, he feels the grey kitten start to purr. Steve lurches up to his knees, yanking his collar aside one handed to peer down at the sorry bundle of fur he'd been clutching for blocks, and yes, its eyes are vague and bright and open as it peers about as if to make sense of where it's found itself. Its ears tickle Steve's chest as it gives its head a shake and squeaks with indignation.

"And what is this you've brought me then?" The voice behind him is large, low and kind, velvety with amusement as Steve gasps about on his knees to stare at the red haired lady standing over him, dressed unashamedly in a workman's shirt and trousers, and a heavy leather apron that's grimy and singed in more than one place. She's a stranger but somehow her springtime eyes are so familiar Steve could almost call her by name. A fiery curl escapes her thick braid and she tucks it back behind her ear as Steve frees the struggling kitten from its trap of cambric and jersey. "Ah, poor wee kit," she coos, reaching out to stroke its flat head with one finger, "it's wet through and nearly drowned, you are. Come along and bring him by the fire, my love," she says to Steve, cupping his elbow so that he has to rise or else be tugged, and steadying his legs when doing so makes him lurch a little. 

"But there were three kittens," he gasps, remembering to look suddenly, but finding no trace of ginger or black fur on the stone floor where he'd been huddling. "What happened to the other two?"

"Oh, no doubt they're well enough," she tells him with a smile and a leading nudge at his elbow. "Cats always turn up when they wish to, and no sooner. Here now," She points to a shallow basket beneath the long table as they pass. "Set him just there, so he'll not be in the way of our work." 

She steers Steve around the end of the table, and he suddenly realizes the source of the warmth that’s been easing the ache from his bones. There’s an enormous open hearth blazing along one end of the room -- bigger than Steve’s bed at home, with the coals piled up high as every single blanket and featherbed his Ma could borrow that one time he had the pheumonia. There’s a big sort of cup at the end of a long rod -- a crucible, his mind supplies the name from nowhere -- sitting just in the shadow of bellows that looks like it would reach the ceiling if it were pushed open all the way. 

"Our work?" Steve tries to keep the doubt from his voice, but from the merry glance the lady gives him as they approach the fire, it probably didn't work.

"Yes, Stiain, we've work wanting doing, you and me, and the coals are wasting while we chat." She sets one hand on her hip, head cocked in challenge, and one side of her lips tilting upward. "Can you be of use to me, little one, or have you just come for a cup of tea?"

He bristles, knowing that she intends him to, and doing it anyhow because something in his mind tells him he'll get away with giving her at least a little bit of lip. He shoves his shirt cuffs up over his elbows, juts his chin at her, and decides to forget how much his chest was hurting just moments ago. "I ain't that little," he declares, "an I don't like tea."

"Well useful it is then," she decides with a proud look that makes Steve's whole insides go warm.

“You’ll work the bellows then,” she tells him as they reach the great, big contraption of oak and oxhide, both similar to, and nothing like the fiddly little thing from the tidy fireplace set on the Barneses hearth. The handle is thicker than Steve's arm when he takes hold of it, and he can feel a weight to the wood, a tingling sort of life, as if his hands are becoming aware of every other set of hands that have ever stretched up high as they could to push this ancient thing open, or jumped and dangled their weight off the jutting spar to force it closed again.

The coals roar with victory each time he does it, but after two goes, Steve’s ambition is wavering, and his grip is getting shaky.

"Not so hard, my young lion," she laughs, setting the crucible aside when Steve grunts to shove the wheezing bellows open again, "and not so fast, or you'll blow the cinders fair out of the grate and we'll have nothing to burn. Steady's the way." 

She sets her hands beside Steve's on the wood, lifting it slowly and not quite so far as he had, pausing for a long moment with the bellows full, and then then pushing it flat again in a long, even slide. Then she does it again, and again, and again; easy, deep and slow, Steve's hands rising and falling along with hers as the bellows huffs, hovers, and sighs. 

"There now, that's the way of it," she says, her hands lifting away as Steve takes the motion over at her pace now. "See how the coals just gleam, but the sparks fly up straight? That's the help I need to make the crucible flow."

And so Steve does as she'd bid, working the bellows slowly full, then easily empty again in smoothly repeating patterns while the red haired lady sets about filling up the crucible -- which, now it’s settled in its nest of fire, looks like Steve himself might be able to curl up tight and fit inside it. He finds as he works that the ache in his ribs and back begins to ease, and his jumpy, lurching heart seems to find its pace from the steady, rhythmic work of his hands.

Steve doesn’t know much about metal. He’s met shipbuilders down by the docks, talked to welders and riveters whenever the tall buildings went up in town, but he’s never gone over to Jersey where the foundaries are, never seen for himself how rocks can settle, crumple, and flow into a simmering, seething orange mass. There’s a part of him that finds it terrifying -- there are cracks in that crucible, he can see them from the fierce light of the coals. If the container were to fail, and all that power, all those fierce secrets were to slosh free, swamp him like a dreadful wave, what would be left of him? Maybe his bones would stand afterward -- naked and shocked as the dinosaurs in the museum, locked in place to rust quietly away in the darkness... unless the lady just popped his bones back into the crucible to try again...

“How... how long?” Steve asks to distract himself from that seething orange mass of secrets.

“Steady now...” the lady murmurs, taking hold of the crucible’s handle and bracing herself to lift it free. “Easy... easy...” Steve can’t tell if she’s talking to him, or to the molten metal as she hefts it up, swings it around, and... dumps it on the floor.

Steve yelps and jumps at that, dangling from the bellows’ handle as the metal screams, steam billowing everywhere. But the lady doesn’t flinch, doesn’t stop pouring, and in the angry orange light of it, Steve realizes suddenly that there’s a round, shallow groove carved out for it there that it’s water howling as it boils away, and that the oozing menace cools and is still far more quickly than it had seemed to melt.

He dropped off the bellows’ handle as the last few drops scattered free and she set the crucible aside. “Is...” he peered at the lumpen mass congealing in its shallow, curved form and guessed, “Is it a pot?”

“Why it’s barely even metal just yet, accushle,” she answered, setting the empty crucible back onto the forge’s wide ledge. “No temper, no strength, no flex to it at all -- better than a stone, but not by much. We’ve a job of work left to do, making this one ready.” She stripped off her heavy gloves, tossed them onto the table, and turned to pour what looked like milk from a pitcher Steve hadn’t noticed there before. “But once it’s finished; once it’s tempered up true and polished perfect -- then it’ll not be meant for any kitchen, I can promise you that.”

She held out one of the two mugs to him, and Steve’s stomach rumbled at the warm, creamy smell of it. He tried to be polite, and not gulp it down, but he hadn’t realized how hungry he’d become until just then, and the lady seemed proudly amused to see his eagerness. Right up until he choked on the final dregs.

“Ah, ot’s off with you now, dear one,” she told Steve as he spluttered, slapping his back with one broad, callused hand while she plucked the cup free of his grip with the others. “You’ve work of your own to see about now, and they’ll be wanting you back home for it.”

“Wha-” Steve gurgled, coughed again as she led him past the long table. The grey kitten picked up its head and mewed as they went by, but it made no move to leave the warmth of its cozy basket. “Yr’... na... Who’re-” But it was no use. He just couldn’t get the words out past the mess in his throat.

“Slow and steady now, Stiain,” he heard the lady say as her hand began soothing circles over his struggling back. “Remember the way of it? So the coals just glow, and the sparks fly up straight?”

“But...” He paused on the stairs, bent over at the waist and put his all into coughing, to try and work it all loose so he could ask, at least, that final question he needed so much to know. The force of it staggered his balance, and down he sat, but the hand between his shoulder blades didn’t falter.

“Steady,” she said, as if she was far away. 

“Steady...Steady... Stevie... Stevie, come on. You got to wake up now. Stevie. Stevie!” 

_Strange,_ he thought as he fought a breath in and held it against the cramp in his shoulders and chest, _She sounds so much like Bucky..._

“Come on now Stevie. Yer ma’s on the way right now, and she’s fit to bust.” The hand on his back balled up tight and gave a thump that startled Steve into a weak little cough. “You don’ want her to see you all laid out in the street, lookin blue now, do ya?”

He fought his eyes open, squinting as he started the breathing count all over again. In slow, like heavy wood lifting in his hands, hold it in deep, and then finally out. Bucky had a black eye, and his school jacket was ripped at the shoulder. Steve lifted a weak hand to finger the loose blue threads. “ll mendit,” he mumbled. 

“Aw shut it, you dummy,” Bucky growled, catching Steve up into a quick but gentle hug.

“Jimmy’s ma said it was time he had a new one anyhow,” Molly offered from behind them, her voice just a little thick, just a little ragged, just a little giddy. When Steve craned to look, her hair was all askew from its plait, and both her knuckles were skinned and bleeding as she cradled a tiny, squirming, squeaking bundle of black fur against her uniform shirt. Jo’s behind her, uniform neat, hair tidy, and lip leaking only a single, tidy trickle of blood as she strokes the black kitten with one gentle finger.

“Sides,” Isaac put in from the top of the stoop, where he crouched with a ginger kitten in one hand and a broken off bat in the other, “it was Luka Berchik who ripped it, and his dad’s a tailor, so he oughta see to fixing it, right?” 

“Yer all nuts,” Steve managed at last, leaning against Bucky’s shoulder for a few minutes longer since nobody seemed to care. Bucky’s hand was a broad, restless weight against his ribs, and it helped him remember the slow, steady pattern he needed. His arms were sore, like he’d been clenching them, his hands trembling on the edge of cramp, but he wanted to laugh at the sight of his rescue crew, gathered around him like guard dogs over... 

“Whoa,” Bucky yelped as Steve pulled away from him, patting his belly and sides with panicked hands. “Settle down there, what’s the matter?”

“The kitten,” he answered, smoothing the baggy folds of his shirt flat, searching for that still, cold weight he remembered as he’d been falling. 

“They’re fine,” Molly asserted. “Jo and me are taking Blackie home to gran, and Isaac’s dad says they have mice at the school, so he’s sure to keep Cinder.”

“No, there was a grey one,” Steve insisted, wobbling to his knees to search the pavement for any sign. He didn’t see them look at each other, but he felt it, and it made his temper surge. “There _was_ a grey one!” he insisted, breath shortening up tight again.

“Well I didn’t see it,” Bucky put in, all casual sass as he sat back and dusted off his knees. “I was too busy watching Harry Drennan try and run home with a fat lip, both eyes swole shut and his best britches split down the crack like a peach.” He barked a laugh, prompting the others to join in, and then offered a hand down to Steve. A peace offering Steve was going to take, even if he wasn’t quite steady enough yet. He let Bucky haul him to his feet in a sudden lurch, and then didn’t shake off the lingering shoulder pat that kept him upright afterward. 

“Bet he’ll think twice next time, won’t he?” Bucky crowed, and the others laughed agreement. Steve wasn’t so sure, but didn’t see any point in saying so, especially since Hamish came running around the corner just then, and Steve’s Ma, still in her starched hospital apron, with an umbrella clenched like Excalibur in her fist, was not five angry steps behind him.

The fight was over, the innocents saved, the villains set to rout, and now, at last, there would be Hell to pay. His Ma would have to work at least one double to cover this, even if Steve did manage to convince her he was fine and didn’t need to be fussed over. If Hamish had been panicked enough to get her to come, then Ma would be home the night, and Steve would be up to his ears in poultices, broth, and strange tasting teas, for sure. 

“Uh oh,” Jo said as she spotted the incoming adult -- adults, actually, for there were two of the hospital orderlies following along like soldiers in Ma’s wake. The girls and Isaac all faded back out of the way, leaving Bucky alone at Steve’s side, Bucky’s hand steady and unshaking as Steve squared his shoulders and breathed in slow, Bucky’s chin lifted at the same contrite-yet-defiant angle as Steve’s.

“Don’t you dare tell her it was your fault,” Steve warned his best friend as they watched the group come on. “This wasn’t your fight.”

“Wasn’t yours either,” Buky muttered back. “Harry Drennan started it. Hit you right from behind, kicked you when you was down. We all seen.”

Which meant they’d all decided what to say before Steve even woke up, And since it was more or less true, and Steve knew better than to present a divided front when adults wanted to know how things had shaken out, Steve resigned himself to the slight deception. He was in for enough trouble from his Ma already, last thing he needed was to be on the outs with Bucky too.

So Steve stood to face the music, his sore hands curled at his sides as if he held a length of ancient, touch-smoothed wood beneath them, the phantom smells of coal smoke, flowing metal, and secrets tickling the back of his throat as he counted his breath in and held it, waiting to exhale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Congrats if you're still reading this one. It's still alive, I promise.


End file.
